Jesus states clearly the most important commandments in all of Scripture: love of God and love of neighbor. These are the only treasures in the life of a Christian. Everything else should be subservient to those values and goals. God invested centuries cultivating an...
An essential part of being a true human being, a religious person is maintaining a good relationship with God. Over many generations’ prayer, fasting, and almsgiving formed a central part of religious life for the people of Israel. This continues to be true in God’s...
I have always wondered about the practice of nonprofit fundraising and especially large capital campaigns that offer naming opportunities to attract seven-, eight-, and nine-figure donations from high-net-worth individuals. As far back as the first century CE, Roman...
In the Old Testament everything about our relationship with God and others became reduced to interpretations, delineations, and limitations of God’s will. God’s law helped Israel control the human tendency to violence and revenge. God’s intention was for his Law to be...
During the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus references Exodus 21 in which Moses is explaining the Torah to the people. It is a description of and an attempt to regulate fair punishment for violence so that the punishment did not exceed the injury. The instruction was aimed...
